Egret & Heron Day

Blue Grosbeak, c Deb Hirt

Saturday, April 25

We left America's best Value Inn on Saturday after breakfast, intent on stopping at Big Thicket National Preserve north of High Island. We walked the Sundew Trail scouting for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and Brown-headed Nuthatches in the pines and marshes—to no avail—but we did pick up Blue Grosbeak, Red-headed Woodpecker, and a White-eyed Vireo. 

After the Sundew Trail we traveled down the road several miles and stopped briefly at the Big Thicket visitor’s center, but did not walk any trails. We were eager to get to High Island and vowed to explore Big Thicket on the way home. We arrived at High Island about 3:30, stashed our gear in our room, and immediately headed for Houston Audubon's Boy Scout Woods. Not much to see there other than Grey Catbirds, Painted Buntings, and more Blue Grosbeaks, so we hopped over to Smith Oaks so that I could show Deb Heron Island.

Heron Island is always a treat. Nesting on it are Great, Snowy and Cattle Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Neotropic Cormorants, and one Tricolored Heron couple. There are viewing platforms at pond’s edge only 20 or 30 feet away from the island, which makes for fantastic viewing and photo opportunities. Even I with my little point-and-shoot can get passable shots--see below for a Neotropic Cormorant I took in 2011.

Neotropic Cormorant gathering nesting material 

Some Great Egrets were still sitting on eggs, but many had chicks at different stages of development from fluffy little ones to larger ones with pinfeathers. All of the snowies that we saw were still sitting on their pale blue eggs. Most of the cormorants and spoonbills were still incubating eggs, and one very inept couple of tricolored herons was trying to build a nest on some very slender willow branches. More about that later.

Great Egret in its breeding finery c Deb Hirt

Great Egret chicks wearing  pinfeathers c Deb Hirt

There were Purple and Common Gallinules in the duckweed-covered water between us and the island. There were also at least two alligators. They would climb out covered with duckweed and lie like moss-covered logs beneath the nests. Fortunately we did not suffer the trauma of their catching a bird.

Purple Gallinule; c Birder's Digest

We are in the rundown Gulfway Motel (the only motel in High Island). I have stayed here twice before on trips to High Island. Each time I am here I take pix of the swallows nesting under the entryway. This year Deb reported 5 nests. Below is a photo I took of the swallows in 2011.

Barn Swallow feeding young